


Surfacing

by Laura_Mayfair



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Bedroom Sex, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 01:25:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura_Mayfair/pseuds/Laura_Mayfair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura, Tom, and a bed.  Post New Caprica.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surfacing

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to lanalucy for the beta.

It was the first time they’d enjoyed the ready availability of a bed. Thanks to a presidential visit to _The Rising Star_ , the President and Vice-President found themselves installed in a comfortable and private room with a double bed and a shower with room enough for two. In fact, Laura had insisted on the slightly larger room. One positive thing about the return of her illness was that she was finding it much easier to be a little bit demanding once in a while. Tom would cheekily tell her that her being “high maintenance and exacting” wasn’t unusual. The revelation at Baltar’s trial about her cancer’s reappearance hadn’t doused Tom’s eagerness to challenge her; she was grateful to him for that, for not treating her like she was on her deathbed. At the moment, she felt pretty damned good and she was going to take advantage of her vitality for as long as it lasted.

Laura leaned a hand against the wall and took off her shoes, flexing sore feet and stretching while Tom wriggled out of his jacket on the other side of the room, watching her hungrily.

“I have to look at these meeting minutes while my head is still fresh. The chamalla --”

Tom’s lustful expression sobered just a little. “I’d offer to debrief you but somehow I don’t think you’d go for that.”

Laura smiled at him, almost regretfully, and shrugged. “I’d feel like I was copying your homework.”

“You know, I was an honor roll student. Well, I was until I burned some government propaganda while they were recruiting for the war.”

“I read about that in your book. You were still in high school, weren’t you?”

“Ooh, I love it when you demonstrate a knowledge of my work. It makes me feel so flattered.” Tom’s eyes sparkled and his features arranged themselves into that look of sheer and utter delight that he got every so often. The artless, almost childlike expression always surprised her, even though she also had to admit that it suited him somehow. He could be completely charming in these unguarded moments, when he wasn’t expressly trying for it. It wasn’t something that she’d ever admit to him.

“That’s because you have an ego the size of _Galactica_.” Laura cut him off as he opened his mouth to interject. “And don’t even think about gloating over the size of anything else that you’re in possession of.”

“I wasn’t going to,” pouted Tom when he clearly had been about to do just that. “I’m so much more creative. The book burning didn’t go over very well anyway. What can I say? I’m just fiery and passionate in all things.”

“Gods, you are so cheap,” said Laura.

Tom grinned, clearly un-offended and hopelessly self-amused. “But you know I don’t always believe all of my own publicity.”

“Mmmm, but most of the time you do.”

“You are so mean to me,” Tom lamented as his shoulders drooped and he released a melodramatic sigh. “I don’t know why I keep coming back for more of your abuse.”

“If you don’t let me get this done, we’ll never get to...other activities.”

“Oh, I would really like to get to...other activities.”

Laura lowered her voice to an incandescent shimmer. “So would I.”

“Tease.”

She sat down on the room’s sole chair and curled one leg underneath her body while the other one dangled. She opened up the first folder and glanced up briefly to see Tom still looking at her as he searched for something in his briefcase. His gaze was predatory.

“You are an unacceptable distraction, Mr. Zarek. Find some way to occupy yourself and stop looking at me like you want to eat me.”

“But I do want to eat you. I want to devour every last delectable inch of you. I’m voracious for you. And you are encouraging me and you know it.”

“I know no such thing.” Laura stretched, tilting her head lazily to the side at an angle that exposed her neck while she simultaneously flexed her leg. She watched him surreptitiously from under her lashes as he sat down on the bed with a large book under one arm. He rearranged the pillows, carefully covering his lap with one of them.

Laura wanted what was under that pillow. She contemplated going over there to get it but she hated to make anything too easy for Tom. Instead, she pretended to be completely absorbed in her meeting minutes. They weren’t all that interesting, a litany of complaints on supply shortages or perceived distribution inefficiencies. Endless inquiries about the progress on the search for Earth. Maybe she should have just let him debrief her after all. It wasn’t that she was cavalier about the needs of the Fleet. She was simply _tired._ This sojourn on the _Rising Star_ was the first block of time that she’d had solely to herself in the past three weeks. Laura quickly flipped to the second set of pages while her Vice-President combed through a favorite philosophy book. They each read in silence for a few charged minutes until a knock at the door interrupted the quiet. Laura glanced over at Tom with a small and challenging smirk before gesturing meaningfully toward the door with a tilt of her head.

He peered at her from over the top of his book with gleeful eyes. “Sweetheart, if you want me to get up and answer the door with a hard-on, I’ll gladly comply. I’m shameless, remember?”

Laura giggled. “I hate you so much. Fine. I’ll take care of it.” She subtly exaggerated the sway of her hips as she made her way to the door.

“Oh, by that I do hope you mean me.”

“Hush.”

Laura opened the door just enough to poke her head out, stifling her growing amusement. Tory was on the other side with that characteristic ‘I just took a bite out of something unpleasant’ expression. She felt a potent stab of longing for Billy.

“Your speech for tomorrow morning for the press conference,” explained Tory stiffly as she handed a document to Laura.

“Thank you.” Laura managed her most practiced politician’s smile.

“Tell the Vice-President that we’ll escort him an hour prior to your shuttle’s arrival, so he should be ready,” Tory added flatly.

“Duly noted,” called Tom from inside the room. Tory flinched.

“Goodnight, Tory,” said Laura.

“Goodnight, Madame President.”

Laura quietly closed the door.

“Tory isn’t very fond of me, is she?” Tom asked, grinning unapologetically at Laura as she slipped the speech inside the appropriate folder and made her way over to the bed.

Laura stood in front of him with her hands on her hips. “You, Sir, are a colossal ass. She doesn’t like you because you are obnoxious and inconvenient. And lacking in discretion. You’re supposed to pretend like you’re not here.”

“I was going to tell her that I’m already ready.” Tom tossed the pillow aside. He reached for Laura and pulled her forcefully up onto the bed and halfway into his lap, sliding his arms around her waist and pressing the posterior side of her body tightly up against his chest. His hands skimmed her knees, moved slowly up her thighs, and came to rest against the hourglass curve of her waist.

“Actually, I’ve been ready all day, Madame President.” He nipped at her neck and turned the tiny nibble into a kiss. “And I’m very discreet -- in public,” he added petulantly. “I’m only an ass in private. I resent the implication.”

Laura hummed. She closed her eyes and allowed the warmth of his body to seep into hers. His chest felt so good the way he was pressed to her, flush against her back, the solidness of him, the heat. Since New Caprica, she felt perpetually cold, as if the unforgiving dampness of that barely habitable planet was still with her. She fell into the warmth that he offered and allowed it to wash over her like the brightest summer sun.

Tom nuzzled her neck with his mouth and nose before beginning an unhurried path to her earlobe with his lips. He knew what buttons to push, knew far better than she’d like to acknowledge. She kept promising herself that she’d put an end to these trysts, pleasurable as they were. Logically, she should. They had great sex, a strong and potent physical connection. That was it. And he made her laugh. It was fun and frivolous. It should be easy enough for her to put a stop to it.

But somehow she hadn’t.

Laura turned her body to face him and slid her arms up over his shoulders, hugging him possessively, as if the mere thought of ending the affair was somehow going to suddenly make him disappear. Maybe if she held onto him tightly enough, she wouldn’t have to give him up. His enthusiastic answering squeeze caused her to relax a little. She didn’t have to end anything tonight. But eventually...it was inevitable. Where, after all, could the relationship of a former terrorist and the president of a slowly expiring race go? Their pairing had been ill fated since the first tumultuous kiss, since that first frantic coupling on the desk of her office when their bruises were still fresh from that small detention cell they’d shared on New Caprica.

Tom took her face in between his palms and held it. When he leaned down and kissed her, it was slow and sweet and disarmingly honest. “Right here,” he said quietly.

She knew exactly what he meant in those two simple words and she felt an unbidden tightness gather in the back of her throat. A language had sprung up between them, another “gift” from that dreaded detention cell. They could communicate now through a short phrase, a quick sweep of eyes, a subtle gesture. _I’m right here. We’re right here on the_ Rising Star _. Not on New Caprica. Right here._

She kissed him back with a ferocity that came from some deep, primal place and she felt herself slipping into that space that she always felt with him, that sense of of whirling bottomless suspension. His kisses were as chaotic as the rest of him and she didn’t understand any of it, not him, not herself, not whatever inexplicable force it was that kept bringing them back together.

They simultaneously began working on the buttons of his shirt and her blouse, hands criss-crossing in the process. They exchanged slow smiles as they both competed to finish their task first. Laura gave an imperious shake of red hair when he undid the final button at the bottom of her blouse just before she unfastened the last one on his.

“If I remember our rules correctly,” he whispered in her ear, “I get to undress you the rest of the way unhindered.” He clasped both of her hands within his. “That means that these pretty little hands have to be still.”

“And you claim that _I’m_ the bossy one. At least I’m gracious when I win,” said Laura.

Tom licked the groove of her collarbone with the tip of his tongue before answering. “That’s highly debatable.”

He pulled her blouse off and kissed her again while his hands unfastened the back clasp of her bra and pulled it off. He was slow about it. His hands traced random patterns against her exposed skin. He pushed her onto her back, against the soft mattress, gripping her wrists and positioning her hands down by her sides while he slid down the length of her body.

“I’m going to trust you to keep those hands where they belong.”

“That’s just silly. You and I have never trusted one another. You really don’t want to alter a dynamic that works, do you Tom?”

“I trust you, Laura.”

He pulled down the side-zipper on her skirt and began tugging the garment down. Laura raised her hips to hasten the process. She wanted his hands on her and she wanted him naked. She made a sound that was half staccato hum, half sigh, a sound that clearly expressed her unwillingness to wait.

“You are entirely too impatient, Madame President.”

“You’re dawdling.”

“It’s called foreplay. Most women like it. I think you’re just too used to having to rush. As your VP, I feel it’s my duty to encourage you to relax.”

“You’re far more likely to give me heart palpitations.”

He grinned. “That works, too.”

Tom placed a hand on each thigh and began rubbing as he gazed up at her. It seemed so unreasonable that he could make her wet with a look and a touch that was so soft that it was almost an _implication_ of a touch. But he could. He lowered his mouth and kissed along the smooth skin, allowing his lips to linger along the slope of her thigh. He nudged her legs apart and she bit back a whimper of anticipation.

“You do realize that we’ve never done this in a bed before,” he pointed out. He sucked on the skin of her inner thigh and gave his head a small shake until she moaned. He followed the motion up with a loud kiss.

“I realize.” Her voice was breathy.

His fingertips pulled at the waistband of her panties. He edged them down in that same leisurely pace, discarding them with a flourish. He straddled her body then, pressing his erection against her center through the fabric of his pants while he moved his head back up to her neck.

“I hope you brought a frakking scarf.”

“Yes.” It came out as a throaty gasp. He was sucking on that sensitive spot a couple of inches below her left ear while he ground against her.

“Yes you did or yes you like what I’m doing to your neck?” He alternated between sucking and nibbling with an occasional kiss. His hands flitted across her stomach and up to her breasts, squeezing gently, kneading, teasing -- padding the nipples with his thumbs.

“Both.”

“I love it when I render you incapable of anything but one word answers.”

“Bastard.”

He gave her neck another soft bite and she pushed her hips up against him in an unsubtle appeal, telling him that she wanted more. More of everything. More of him. More of the cock that wasn’t even out of his pants yet. More of his hands on her. More of his mouth.

She felt him shift and move his hands down in between their bodies followed by the unmistakable sound of him unzipping his pants. She wondered if it was a planned move or if his erection was simply becoming too uncomfortable. But in the end she supposed his reasoning was irrelevant if it got him one step further out of his pants. He pushed against her again, more insistently than before, and she wrapped a leg around his hip. The simple maneuver increased the friction between them and they were suddenly wrapped in a familiar rhythm. Laura was gratified when he swore against her neck, a fraction of his earlier finesse suddenly gone.

“Frak, Laura.”

Laura laughed. “Yes. Exactly.”

“Not yet.”

He moved off of her and she felt bereft without the direct contact of his body. She watched through half lidded eyes as he rapidly shed the rest of his clothing. She felt too good to complain about the delay so she merely rolled onto her side and propped her head against her hand while she took in the view. Her scrutiny didn’t faze him.

“Like what you see, Laura?”

She puckered her lips and gave a pointedly disinterested shrug of her shoulders.

Tom climbed up onto the bed and leaned in for another kiss, growling with approval when she wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him closer. He kissed down the side of her neck, trailing his lips to suckle idly along the skin of her throat and to nuzzle in between her breasts. He surprised her when he paused there for a few moments. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her already flushed skin as he slowly inhaled and exhaled. Her fingertips found their way to his temples and she threaded her hands into his hair. Another time she might have dismissed him or hurried him along with a peremptory tug. This time there was nothing in the relaxed posture of her body but acceptance.

He turned his head and latched onto a nipple, bringing her startlingly back from the stillness at the eye of the storm into the hurricane. A lazy swirl of his tongue against the sensitive bud pitched her back into that aching fever of want. Fingers that were so much longer and rougher than her own would have been parted her folds and circled her clit.

His mouth was no longer on her breasts. Instead, he watched her. His eyes dipped below her waist to observe what he was doing with his hands, to seek her eagerly splayed thighs and rotating hips. He alternated between focusing on his ministrations and gazing at her face. He pushed two fingers inside of her while he grazed his thumb against her clit. She responded to the rhythm that he set, moaning loudly and twisting against his hand.

“Come for me.” She didn’t know whether it was the sudden shock of his breath in her ear or the words themselves that caused the first small spark. It didn’t matter because she was already spinning into oblivion. The orgasm crashed over her, fast and unexpected, heady and hot, spiraling out into a series of tiny spasms.

* * *

 

Laura nestled into Tom’s arms after she came, her lips curved into a smile. It wasn’t that practiced, counterfeit smile that she offered to the press. There was no artifice in this expression. Her eyes were closed but Tom knew that if she opened them, the smile would be there, too, like light that couldn’t be contained. She was always listless after an orgasm — and thirsty. Tom stretched one arm out and grabbed the cup of water on the small table beside the bed.

“Water?”

“Mmmmm.”

He handed her the cup and watched her take a slow sip. After she finished drinking, he took the cup and placed it back on the small table. When he turned back to her, he was rewarded with a deep kiss -- not the drowsy post coital kind of kisses that she gave him when she was sleepy and spent, but one of those tantalizing ones meant to inflame, sweet and scorching like burnt sugar.

He opened his mouth to say something clever but that was as far as he got. The words dissolved instead into half gibberish, half groan as Laura kissed a deliberate path down the center of his body. She paused at the place where his scars were, the unmistakable burn marks just at the base of the left side of his rib cage. Four symmetrical circles. Old scars. He knew that she’d seen them before. He’d been naked in front of her enough times. She knew his body. There were no surprises left. She’d never mentioned them, never asked how he’d gotten them, never given any indication of notice.

But this time she kissed them, each one in succession.

Her hands delved lower and her mouth followed the same path. She slipped her hand around the length of his cock and began to stroke him — long strokes, slow. His hips arched off the bed when she moved to lick at the bead of pre-cum at the tip. She looked up at him, her eyes playful as she tilted her head to the side questioningly. Long red hair skimmed, feather light, against his thigh. “Is this how you want me to get you off, Mr. Zarek?”

“I wanna frak you.” The words seemed so inadequate for what he really wanted. Laura moved to accommodate the request, inching her way upward. She was the picture of vitality, flushed and softly smiling, and it seemed to Tom that she couldn’t possibly be sick. His heart lurched at the prospect but he resolutely pushed the notion down. When her pelvis was finally aligned with his, he grabbed her waist and flipped them over in a quick motion.

“I really do like the tactical advantages of a bed,” murmured Tom, as he brought his lips to her neck and simultaneously rubbed his cock against her slick folds. She whimpered and swiveled her hips, clearly asking for what he was only too ready to give. He pushed inside of her without rushing, savoring the feel of simply being surrounded by Laura, of immersing himself in her. His rhythm was slow, almost too slow for what his body was demanding, but he wanted it to last. If the lush sounds that she was making were any indication of enjoyment, she seemed just as eager as he was to accept the easy pace, to prolong the pressing and the pushing and the rocking of hips, the tangled limbs, the subdued intimacy.

She clenched around him when she climaxed, wrapping her legs around him and squeezing, but that wasn’t the action that made him come. It was the quick little gasp of breath in his ear, the arms that were suddenly twined around him, holding him to her. It was the sound of her crying out his name for the first time.

He stayed inside her for a minute after it was over as they both caught their breath. He rolled off of her eventually, afraid that his weight would be too much -- and his limbs felt like jelly. Tom smoothed out the twisted sheets while she shifted her position. When he settled, she rested her cheek against his chest, almost tentatively, as if she were on the brink of leaning closer -- or pulling away. He felt a physical tension in her body that he hadn’t felt earlier, and when she finally withdrew from him, he wasn’t surprised.

She sat up and turned so that her back was toward him. “I’m a mess,” she said softly.

“Laura — “

“I’m going to take a shower.” She didn’t turn, wouldn’t look at him. She rose and padded into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.

The door had barely been closed a second before he was springing out of bed to follow.


End file.
